The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-07-14
THE CATTLE QUEENS.

THE CATTLE QUEENS.
Hard Working Women Who Have
Conquered success In the Path of
the Cowboy.
Mr.. Theodore Roosevelt. to whom
his Dakota ranch is an object of inter-
est quite as engrossing as the luckless
mugwump. says that the ranch-woman
the cattle queen. rs the west Is falling
into the way of styling hers no
newspaper myth. She exists; her num-
bers are increasing, and she is one of
the most characteristic types that the
conditions Of American life have evolv-
ed. She is the modern independent
woman, but with q difference. She
does not stand on her feet like the New
York woman because she feels her in
fluence in society, nor like the New
England woman because she has been
taught to think for herself, but be-
cause, like all frontiersmen, she has
been forced to act for herself, and, with
true western grit. she does 1t we'll. She
knows how to take care of herself. She
knows how to take of her cattle. She
knows how to make for her children a
homestead and heritage. Occasion
ally she knows what few self-support-
ing women have yet learned. how to
make money not only to live on but to
grow rich on, as men and women count
wealth nowadays.
"There are women all over the west, :"
Mr.. Roosevelt said the other day, who
have come to be as thoroughly capable
of managing their affairs for themselves
as if they were the shrewdest of men.
Fortitude and patience we always look
for in a woman, but cool bravery and
business talent are the qualities that
sometimes come out the strongest
when she finds herself facing rude
civilization, and left to shift for herself
as best she can. Life on ranch is
desperately rough on woman. There
is no call to pity pioneer of the other
sex, for if he has the right stuff in him
it won't hurt him to buckle right down
to the bone, and then he can't but sue
coed. But for woman. to an easterner
at least, it seems different. And yet,
as far as one can see, they like it, a
good many of them. and it brings out
the best that is in them.
''They are not angels, by any means,
and woman desparado is sometimes
quite as much to be feared as the worst
of the men. There was one down in
Arizona whom the ranchmen tell tales
of yet, and with somethink like pride
In her exploits. too, who killed, so they
say, twenty-five men with her own
hand. She was hard rider and a
crack-shot, so it was decidedly risky to
be covered by her rifle. But the same
pluck and courage that she showed
turned into more peaceful channels
makes a splendid success of some of
the ranchwomen.
THE women who are managing
cattle ranges for themselves, not
helping their husbands gain foot
ing, which is sometimes about as
hard, come from all social ranks. and
have drifted into the business-I don't
know what proportion of them have
deliberately chosen it in all sorts OF
ways. Some of them are Texans, who
were almost graded with cattle, and to
whom running the mower, feeding
stock, breaking wild horses, or doing
any sort Of work about ranch is sc
much a matter of education and habit
that it seems as much their natural oc.
cupation as taking in sewing to a not.
able housewife left q widow in an
eastern village. They take hold cleverly
with their husbands if they marry; they
strike out for themselves on small
scale, which sometimes grows to 6
larger one if they don't.
''Other ranchWomen, especially In
Dakota, come from New England, New
York, or the states north of the Ohio.
There are school-teachers among them
who have concluded to train somthine
that may possibly shoot more profit.
ably than the unfruitful young idea.
Most of them went west, in the first
place, with their husbands, to see what
could be done in new country, and
when the man of the family died Oh
broke down the wife, rather than sacri-
flee the foothold already gained. staid
on. learned by experience, bought hel
knowledge pretty dearly sometimes,
failed utterly, perhaps, if the winters
were bad or fire swept her buildings
succeeded more probably, kept her
stock in good shape, added to theil
numbers, and came out ahead little
every year. 1t is no joke to succeed
in Dakota in cattle raising, or tree
planting, or wheat farming, but wo-
men can and do make money in al
three.
Success is graded, of course, as else.
where. The women ranchers whom
know personally-and that is no very
large number-are not in the business
on large scale. Some of them are
not ranching as eastern people, will
their ideas of the bigness of western
operations, interpret the word at all
They hava no more than six or ten cat
tie, perhaps, and from that tho number
will run up to twenty-five or fifty head
but they are an energetic and business.
like set of women, who are working in
dustriously in the day of small things,
and, of course, with some. though per-
haps with no large number of others,
the day of large things has already
come.''
Of the women who have had the cour.
age to make bold departure for them
selves some few have been successful,
conspicuously among the rich women
e Al g.